China’s bride prices still rising despite crackdowns on outdated sexist custom for rights to a woman’s labour and her body
- Staggering amounts are demanded by some families in a backwards tribal custom allowing ownership of a woman’s body that is still popular in some areas of China
- Soaring bride prices remain a public concern in China, especially in rural areas where a surplus of men means many remain single.
After dating a woman for several years, a man from northwest China said he had to break up with her because he couldn’t afford the nearly 300,000 yuan (US$47,00) bride price when they considered marriage.
“I asked locals and was told this is commonplace. I hope you can crack down on this phenomenon,” wrote the man, surnamed Qin, last month on the page of “Messages to Leaders” on people.com.cn, an online channel for public complaints in China.
An important custom dating back to ancient times, a bride price is a sum of money paid by the groom’s family to the bride’s as they transfer over the rights to control a woman’s body and labour.
How much does it cost a man to get married in China?
In Zhengning county, Gansu province, northwest China where Qin lives, the average annual income was just over 20,000 yuan (US$3,136) last year, meaning it would take 15 years to raise the money demanded as the bride price by Qin’s girlfriend’s family.
Despite Beijing’s efforts to reform wedding traditions and encourage frugality in recent years, soaring bride prices remain a public concern in China, especially in rural areas where a surplus of men means many remain single.
The Zhengning government said it had set an upper limit for the bride price at 80,000 yuan (US$12,547) for rural families, and 60,000 yuan (US$9,410) for public servants in its latest clampdown on high marriage expenses, according to its reply to Qin on April 7.
“But rectifying high bride prices is a long-term and complicated process and it’s quite difficult for it to be changed by any hard and fast rule,” it added.
Last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs chose one district from 32 designated cities around the country as an “experimental zone” for its wedding reforms, where residential communities are ordered to set up their own rules to control bride prices and wedding expenses.
07:02
China tackles challenges posed by its ageing population
“As long as the gender ratio remains lopsided in rural areas, sky-high bride prices will continue to exist,” he said. “Even if it’s not in the form of bride prices, there will be other forms the price of marriage will take.”
Last year, the gender ratio in rural areas was about 108 males for every 100 females, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Nationwide, there were over 723 million men compared with over 689 million women, leading to a surplus of roughly 34 million men to women, according to official statistics.
‘For emergency in case of love’: school covered in roses with romantic notes
Li Guofu, a villager from Zhaotong, Yunnan, southwestern China, said there are plenty of single men, known as “guanggun”, in his hometown who can’t find a wife because they can’t afford the bride price.
Father of two sons and stepfather of another boy, he said having three boys means he needs to prepare hundreds of thousands of yuan if he wants all of them to marry local girls from an average-income rural family.
“I don’t want them to be guanggun one day, so I have to work very hard now,” he said.
02:46
Bride in China rushes to marry at groom’s flat before lockdown
In Ningshaan, a county of 70,000 people in Shaanxi province, northwest China, legal cases involving disputes over bride prices have surged in recent years, from 21 cases in 2019 to 59 last year, according to Yang Shanshan, an assistant judge at the Ningshaan county court.
The average bride price involved has also increased from 76,000 yuan (US$12,000) to 135,000 yuan (US$21,170), he said.
High bride prices have contributed to various social issues, including crime such as robbery by men, the assistant judge Yang noted.
Shanghai residents pay Africans to send well-wishing videos during lockdown
“There are some young women who take advantage of men’s eagerness to marry and they will disappear escape after receiving a large bride price from them. There were also cases of women trafficked from elsewhere to be sold to local men for marriage,” he said.
Besides the unbalanced gender ratio, a lack of pensions and medical insurance for the elderly in rural areas has also contributed to high marriage expenses, he added.
Parents largely rely on their children for their welfare late in life so traditional beliefs such as “bring up children for the purpose of being looked after in old age” still prevail.
